Parakeet Pillows

 My friend in Japan received her Christmas present in eight days. Not only was I super on the ball, sewing these up,  but the postal service (& customs) gods were smiling too.

A month or so ago, I saw this Parakeet fabric at Fabric Depot. I immediately emailed my friend a photo and she loved the fabric. We settled on housewarming pillows for her new house she is building in kyoto.

 These are the perfect neutral color with just a hint of pizazz in the matte metallic blue budgee.
Her pillows are 15" square so I made these 14.5" square with a two-inch flange.

I added a zippered backing for easy laundering. The back fabric is the same as the front but it's not the same. The original fabric I found at Fabric Depot is a Waverly home dec fabric. When I was at Joann's Fabrics to purchase more interfacing, I was looking around and here was the same design printed onto burlap!

Instant design decision to do the fine waverly weave on the front and the coarser burlap weave on the backside. Two different looks.

  I have it stuffed full with a 16" pillow form to take photos as we don't have 15" forms in the usa.

I still have one more gift to finish that needs to fly off to Singapore. We'll see how long it takes now that the Christmas mailing rush is on.

Artsy Fartsy Rope Bowl

 I had fun making this artsy fartsy rope bowl. This bowl took the longest at a little less than two hours - only because it involved a little hand sewing!

Those round curly ques (discs) stayed in my brain from the last bowl  and I went for it on this bowl. I wanted a small fruit bowl for my Thanksgiving table to go with my brand new vintage linen tablecloth. I picked out some purple fabric scraps, some purple shades of thread and started sewing.

I wanted to make those discs and either have them flopping randomly around or...
I put in two and didn't like the contrast thread on the one side so I elected to hand-sew them down.

I used small scraps of fabric  - about four inches long by one inch wide. Between organically thinking when to add a fabric scrap and when to add a disc, I was pretty engrossed. I guess I could have done a normal flat-side bowl and then sewn the discs and attached them later, but I am loving the totally organically placed 3-D discs and the whole vibe of this bowl.

I think if I were to sew the discs separately, there would be a temptation to place them evenly  and it wouldn't be as awesome.

I used Ace Hardware's 7/32" thick clothesline. It's got a braided cotton outer surrounding a polyester core. I used a size 14 sewing needle with zero problems. I also cleaned out two more spools of thread as well as five bobbins on this bowl.

This is the same clothesline that Pencil Girl uses to hand-dye rope for me.

This is how I worked the bowl. I used a neutral thread  on the top and colored threads in my bobbin. The great thing about these bowls is you don't really notice the stitching and they are seriously forgiving if you wander off. All I see above is the random color fabric stripes.

I also wanted a shallow bowl. Once I reached 4 inches in diameter on the circle, I tilted it as straight up against my machine as I could for about 10-15 rows. Then I let it drop a bit to make the sides be wider. If you tilt it straight up and over your machine you get straighter sides. At the end I was actually tugging it down to get those sides to widen out.

Once I decided to finish with an extra large disc, I threaded a sewing needle and hand-tacked the discs down flat. Easy peasy.

You could make a dog dish out of this. The discs really show off here.
I definitely had a preference for the discs to be inside the bowl although that was not in my dream design. I find these very freeing. And, like I've mentioned before, very satisfying to be able to finish something stunning so quickly.

I have a trick to get the wrinkles out of tablecloths. No ironing either. Wash/Rinse your cloth and let drain in washer until it's damp. Spread over your table how you like it centered overnight. A little dampness won't hurt your wood table and the cloth dries beautifully with no creases.  If you can wring water out of your cloth, it's too wet and you might damage your wood. Damp.


***To change subjects -- are you tired of these rope bowls yet?Here's a video of Canby, shot by a local resident with a drone camera.
Titled Ode To Canby
by Josh Lee Kwai
Shot October 24, 2016

It starts off with the school fields, Wait Park, Willamette River, Fairgrounds, Canby Cougars (High school sports teams), High School, Flower Farmer Train, Dahlias (Swan Island), Ferry across the Willamette River.

Holiday Candy Dish

 I had a small ball of clothesline left over from my last rope bowl. As I was sewing a medium sized gift last Saturday, I kept bumping into it. And then I saw a rope bowl online that used small strips of fabric wrapping to provide color and Voila!  --- another 20 minute gift completed.

I used one- inch strips of fabric from my scrap basket. I originally pulled whatever colors that got my eye and then as I was sitting down, ruminating on the purpose of this gift, I decided to just do red strips.

These strips are between 4 and 5 inches long - little pops of color on the neutral base.

Finishing off, I did  a little loop with the intention of doing four more. My process is very organic. As I was marking those four spots for the loops, I decided it was such a small candy dish size bowl , that it just needed two loops, which organically, ended in the spiral thingy.

While photographing the bowl for this post, the candy dish looked slightly "off". In a massive "Aha!" moment, I stitched that weird spiral down against the side and now I am very happy with my newest rope bowl.

Styled with my beautiful persimmons. I am waiting for the persimmons to become ripe which actually occurred slightly after Thanksgiving last year. The yellow will  become more orange and there will be a slight give to the fruit when you handle them.

Country Christmas Bazaar

 Cutie Mrs. Claus at the Bazaar.

 I was debating with myself if these were handmade. There's a uniformity to the stitches that screams machine made in a far-off country.

Vintage Christmas

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Clothespin lace and ribbon dolls.

 This was a very cute needlebook for people who sew.
Flip her skirt up to reveal hand-stitching tools.

Rustic wool stockings with button ornaments.

Slightly scary snowmen

Love these transfer cotton towels.

 Tutti Frutti Popcorn. I met the original owners when I moved here years ago.
I love their popcorn although I can't eat it anymore because it's not a non-gmo food (genetically modified). It makes a great gift for others.

The lone airplane spotted - a travel tic-tac-toe game.

Lots of christmas bazaars this weekend in Canby. This one is at the fairgrounds until Saturday.

Blooming Jade Plants

This is my root bound thirty-year-old jade plant.

 My friend, Teresa, came over yesterday to pick up some green japanese maples that I was gonna chuck onto the compost pile. They were all too root bound to make it another summer in those pots and I don't need any more planted on my acre. They come from a big green japanese mama tree and only grow a quarter of the size. I like to have them on my patio for the vertical element and I also play bonsai with them while they are young.

I'm cleaning off the patio for winter. Putting the patio furniture away, rolling up hoses, putting the semi-delicate plants against the protected wall of the house, getting ready to put the geraniums in the garage and the houseplants returned inside.

The houseplants need to come inside after they've been sprayed off with a hose for most of the bugs and a systemic sprinkled over the soil to keep the hatching bugs from infesting my house.

All of my houseplants go outside in the summer to rusticate. They love  the fluctuating temperatures and the light levels much better than inside the house.

We get enough frosts and freezings here in the Willamette Valley that the delicate things need to come inside or at least into the garage or basements of our houses. The geraniums and fuschias in the hanging baskets will go into the garage.

They are loving our temperate 60 degree November days and blooming so well, it's difficult to get ruthless and trim them up for storage.

Anyway - my jade plant is more than thirty years old. I married it and it was a dangly, sad-looking house plant that I chucked out on the deck to compost. Instead, the golden retriever's puppy tail pruned it for me and it became this lush plant with little growths all over. It stands about three feet high and round.

Lesson 1:  They want to be pruned.

After about ten years, it set out these blooms that opened in November and held on until February. There's is a slight smell and pollen but mostly they are little white star flowers with a tint of pink.

Lesson 2:  It has to be old enough to bloom.

One November, I left it out a little too long (thanksgiving!) and the second frost melted half of it. But it came back. with little green sprouts.

Lesson 3: Leave outside as close to possible to first frost to harden off. But not past the moment.

The trunks on this baby are about five inches in diameter. It doesn't like to be over-watered - maybe once a month? In the winter, it goes a tad dormant. It would be fine in the garage but I like the little star flowers, so it comes inside.

In the spring, I prune off the weird parts - I like that spherical look, and toss those cuttings under the hydrangea where they all take root.

I rarely re-pot. Sometimes, I add a little soil to the top. I have cut the roots - as in bonsai directions - to thin them out. Most of the years, I do nothing.

Lesson 4: Leave them alone. Perfect houseplant for me.

 Here are some three year old babies all together in a pot. Not sure what I'm gonna do with this one. I don't want a second plant in the house. Keep pruning until I can foist it off on a friend.

 These are two year old babes. Some in individual pots and the ones in front together in the blue pot. This might come inside this winter - it's looking pretty pleased with itself.

 Waiting for hose spray-off are my avocado trees and the ficus that I have a love/hate relationship with.

You want the secret of growing your avocados?
Again, really lazy here. Take the pit outside and plug it in one of your patio pots. Forget the toothpicks, forget scraping the bottom to encourage root growth. Just plug it in some soil - in the summer.

But now what???

It's getting taller. It's also fussy, pitching a hissy fit when I bring it inside and dropping leaves, some leaves turning half brown. I hate fussy. I had a coffee plant for a while - talk about hissy fits. I finally got ruthless and pitched it on the compost pile. I may do so with the avocado. It's a tall statement plant for behind the couch but somewhat fussy in it's drinking habits.

Now - the Ficus. It's not even a variegated leaf one. But it doesn't pitch hissy fits. It's tall, which is nice in the house. It's not particularly pretty. One more winter.

 The fuschias blooming their heads off in the cooler autumn temps.

My mock-orange did not get the winterizing memo either.


Why houseplants inside in the winter? Everyone knows they improve the air quality during the winter months. 

I also have six african violets that do stay inside year round. Way too many. Need friends to come over and leave with one, or two. Any takers?


I wouldn't say no if you needed a six year old avocado tree either.